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stephen king - Is this a real quote from the Dark Tower series?


I found this line (attributed to Jake Chambers, and referring to the rest of his Ka-tet) in Bev Vincent's analysis The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus:



“I love them, but I hope I die before it gets me so bad it stops making any difference if the ones against me deserve [to die] or not.”



I've tried to find this passage in the books themselves (checking every instance of the word "love" in those books in which Jake appears) and on Google, with no success.


Does this passage actually appear in The Dark Tower series, and if so, where?



Answer





I contacted Bev Vincent, author of The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus. Here's what he had to say:



Jonah:


When I was writing The Road to the Dark Tower, I was working from the first draft manuscripts of the final three books. I received later drafts of books 5 and 6 in time to incorporate any corrections or changes King made to the quotes I had pulled from them, but I did not have the opportunity to see the revised MS of the final book before my book went to press. So there are several quotes from The Dark Tower in my book that do not reflect what was finally published. I’m pretty sure that’s the case here.


Bev



So Vincent suggests that this quote was from a pre-publication manuscript of The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower. This seems most probable to me, since the quote is sufficiently dissimilar to any existing one to be misremembered, and Vincent probably wouldn't fabricate it.


This makes sense in the apparent context of the quote. Jake has just killed several people, but he spares the dish-washer Jochabim.




“North of there, if you do like it or if you don’t,” said the washerboy. “Will’ee kill me, lad? I don’t want to die, sad as I am.”


“I won’t be the one to kill you if you tell me the truth. Did a woman come through here?”


The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower



According to Vincent in The Road to the Dark Tower, his thoughts are that Roland, Eddie, and Susannah would have killed him without a second thought, thus prompting the quote:



“I love them [Roland etc.], but I hope I die before it gets me so bad it stops making any difference if the ones against me deserve [to die] or not.”



Certainly Jake seems a kinder character than Roland, so it seems likely this might have occurred in one of King's earlier drafts.


The quote is probably from the initial draft of The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.



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